Beyond Translation: The Native Experience Podcast · 2026-06-08 · 44 min
In Chinese culture, the basic smiley emoji means contempt. The waving emoji means go away. Carl Gene Fordham, newly elected National President of AUSIT and forensic translator working between English and Mandarin, explains why that matters in court. Forensic translation goes the opposite direction from localization: instead of transforming a text for a target audience, you must account for every possible meaning. Five Chinese words can be either a command or a prediction, and you cannot choose. Carl shares how he started learning Chinese at 10 because nobody told him it was hard, why interpreters get scapegoated in courtrooms, and what the next version of Australia's Code of Ethics will say about AI. This is Episode 34 of Beyond Translation: The Native Experience Podcast,
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